This 1950 first day postal cover commemorating
the 150th anniversary of the Judicial Branch is signed boldly by Supreme Court
Justice Hugo L. Black.

Hugo Lafayette Black was Franklin D. Roosevelt's
first of eight appointments to the Supreme Court, a clear measure of his liberal
credentials and political support within the Democratic Party as a two term
United States Senator and supporter of a 30 hour work week. He was
nominated on August 12, 1937 and served until September 17, 1971(eight days
before he died), giving him one of the longest tenures at 34 years of service on
the Court.

Black is probably most famous for being a member of the
Klu Klux Klan in the 1920s, writing the Korematsu v. United States
decision that upheld Japanese internment during World War II and then defending
the decision in 1967 with the comment that "They all look alike to a person not
a Jap."

More importantly, he was a leader of the liberal faction on the court
that revolutionized constitutional interpretation by applying the the Bill of
Rights to the states through their "incorporation" via the 14th Amendment to the
Constitution (first raised in Black's dissent in Adamson v. California in
1947), an interpretation that would never have been supported by the drafters of
that Amendment. On firmer constitutional ground, Black was the leading advocate
of freedom of speech and association and was considered a First Amendment
absolutist, a perspective sorely missed during the 1973(Buckley v. Valeo)
and 1993 (McConnell v. FEC) Supreme Court cases allowing significant
impairment of political speech. Justice Black also dissented in Griswold v. Connecticut
the contraception/privacy case that was the precursor to the Roe v. Wade
abortion case, arguing that Congress and the Amendment process rather than the
Supreme Court should establish social policy.